Austin Peay Football starts the 2026 season at home on Thursday night, hosting Gardner-Webb at Fortera Stadium at 6:00pm. It is the first snap of Jeff Faris’s third season, and the Governors begin it ranked in the top 20 after a 7-5 finish last fall.
That ranking is backed by more than preseason polish. Austin Peay is listed in both the Stats Perform and AFCA polls and was picked to finish third in the United Athletic Conference, with Chris Parson named the preseason UAC Offensive Player of the Year. Joshua Sales Jr. also made preseason All-American recognition on the offensive line, while Jackson Head and Jaden Robinson were tabbed as preseason all-UAC pass-catchers.
The roster comes into the opener with a clear offensive core. Austin Peay returns 78.6% of its total rushing yards from 2025, a share that comes from taking last season’s rushing total as the base and bringing back 78.6 of every 100 yards produced on the ground. It also brings back 70.2% of its running back rushing yards and 20 of its 27 rushing touchdowns, with Parson accounting for 743 yards and 14 scores on 168 carries last season. Four of the team’s top five running backs are back, along with Courtland Simmons, Kaden Williams, Corey Richardson and Isaiah Groves, each of whom had at least 30 carries, 190 yards and one rushing touchdown.
Defense gives Austin Peay another layer to lean on. The Governors return four starters in Antori Hamilton, Jake Stonebraker, Kendyle Ball and Trevor Hardy, and those four combined for 131 tackles, 10.0 tackles for loss, 4.0 sacks, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and five pass breakups. Hardy led the group with 49 tackles and is moving from strong safety to free safety for his senior year.
The opener also puts a home streak in play that reaches beyond the preseason glow. Austin Peay finished the regular season 6-0 at home, its fourth undefeated home season and its second undefeated regular season at Fortera Stadium, and a win over Gardner-Webb would make it seven straight at home. That would match the longest home winning streak the Govs have had since 1964-65, a reminder that the test on Thursday is not only about starting fast but about keeping pace with the standard the program is chasing.
The game will stream on + with Barry Gresham and Ethan Schmidt on the call, and the opening night carries a second burden beyond the broadcast. Faris already turned a 4-8 first year into a 7-5 second year, one of the sharpest rises by a second-year FCS head coach in 2025, and he would need eight or more victories in 2026 to become only the second coach in Austin Peay history to improve the win total in each of his first three seasons. The opener will not answer that in full, but it will show whether a top-20 team with 58 newcomers, and 26 of them in the opening-week two-deep, looks ready to defend the ground it has already claimed.
